Spires Winter 2017 Issue

S P I R E S

W I N T E R

2 0 1 7

Oh!

Matthew Wang Academy of Art University, ‘18 Collage

SPIRES intercollegiate arts & literary magazine

Fall 2017

Copyright 2017, Spires Magazine Volume XXIII Issue I All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from Spires and the author.

Critics, however, are welcome to quote brief passages by way of criticism and review. spiresmagazine@gmail.com spires.wustl.edu facebook.com/spiresintercollegiatemagazine

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Table of Contents Literature 8 Carrie Mannino

23 Elissa Mullins

9 Taylor Zhang

27 Anna Konradi

Plastic

I hoisted them, two parents, I guess that’s what they were,

Project Serendipity

Serendipity

32 Caroline Kelly

45 Bailey Cohen Ghost Story

46 Bailey Cohen

Psalm to be Read on Mother’s Day, in Two Ways

Tarrying in the Park

10 Elissa Mullins Dali’s Diary

34 Grace Sofia Bendik New York Poem

13 Kirsty Warren

Alternative Miss Ireland 1997

36 Theo Kandel Little League

49 Meredith Brus

Plants Speak of the Moon

50 Bailey Cohen In the Living Room Lies a Coffee Table

Art 11 Yena Jeong

43 Savannah Bustillo

My Monster

Noam Chomsky’s “Language and Knowledge”

12 Rosa Jang Through

25 Caroline Yoo

My monster waits for me. A sign.

27 Selina Kehuan Wu Rebirth

33 Ramsha Asim

44 Matthew Wang Cloud

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Rosa Jang Mom Sleeping

49 Claire Huang

Penjing and Psyche

Front Cover Caroline Yoo Hello dearest. I’m here.

Have you forgotten me?

Washington University in St. Louis, ‘18 Digital photography Back Cover Matthew Wang A Tokyo man on the way to whoring Academy of Art University, ‘18 Photography

Echoes

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Staff Editors-in-chief Anna Deen Catherine Thoms Literary Editor Haley Berg Art Editor Michelle Tan Layout Editor Madeline Partner Programming Director Molly Davis Social Media Director Elissa Mullins Treasurer Peter Satterhwaite Staff Abigail Anderson Isabelle Celentano Nasja Wickerhauser Annling Wang Sarah Gao Alli Hollender Holly Baldacci Taylor Zhang

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Letter from the Editors Dear Reader, Here at Spires, one of the most frequent questions we receive—and one of the most difficult to answer—is what exactly we are looking for as editors. The response to this question changes as often as our staff does: year to year, semester to semester, depending on the tastes of the people working behind the curtain. The short answer is that we simply look for high-quality works, but the long answer is that there is no actual hard and fast answer. We don’t look for any specific genres or niches, and we don’t have our hearts set on any particular formats of verse or specific artistic mediums. Instead, one of the words that comes up the most in our haphazard discussions of “what we look for” is the word striking. We look for pieces of literature and artwork that strike the beholder: stories and characters that stay with you long after the pages are turned, paintings and sculptures that etch themselves into the corners of your closed eyelids when you try to sleep. We look for pieces that make us feel something, pieces that give us that visceral gut reaction of oh, yes.

We, the editors of Spires, could not be more certain that the works that appear in this magazine will achieve exactly that. In this issue, we have put together a collection of pieces that break our hearts and pieces that make them soar again, pieces that wiggle themselves into the half-healed tears in our souls and make themselves at home. There is an element of wonder running throughout this magazine that is unlike anything we have published before—a sense of serendipity, if you will.

It is always a privilege to receive the work of our peers, and now more than ever it is an honor to share these works with you all. We hope you find them as striking as we do.

Sincerely,

Anna Deen and Catherine Thoms Editors-in-Chief

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Plastic Her windowsill is lined with bobbleheads the solar-powered ones from Family Dollar that bob yesyesyes with clickety clacks ticking like watches you tuck into drawers at night.

There are dogs, kittens, hula girls, seasonal ones of Santa (we’re Jewish) and Frankenstein We’ve gone through—two years now?

I used to ask her for ghosts.

I send home pictures of the one on my desk a purple dinosaur pilfered from her nightstand goggle-eyed in my gothic window I don’t know if she gets them.

I stare at the t-rex as I try to call home and talk and talk and talk to silence.

There’s a collection in my kitchen back in Pittsburgh a whole array she gave us before things got worse and maybe even a few since then.

My dad sets them face down on rare sunny days— they’re too loud— like bright plastic soldiers on a chip-paint field.

I like to pick them back up.

Carrie Mannino Yale University, ‘20

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I hoisted them, two parents, I guess that’s what they were, one over my shoulder and one slung over my back, like the purple Jansport we took with us when we were backpacking through the Smokies and fell onto Dollywood, all glitter and blonde hair and cigarette smoke, artifice gleaming in the air but happiness too, so sharp on the inhale like mountain air, enough to hurt my lungs, singeing clean lines down my throat deep under my chest, which is to say that sometimes things hurt but feel good too, like the 180 pound wheezing Chinese man on my back or his wiry wife perched on my shoulder, their existence validated only by their weight on my body, pulling so hard on my insides until I think I might cry or scream or vomit up the six cupcakes I ate at the kitchen table before anyone was up, and the worst part was after when I stood on the edge of pain and relief, but had to finish the job, had to press my thumb on the tiny crumbs that were left on my sticky counter and lift them to my lips, no trace of the crime I had committed, except that the wife saw everything and even now on her perfect throne in that dip between my neck and my shoulder, inhabiting simultaneously that angel/devil role, she is still screaming at me to take five diet pills and hit the treadmill, except one time, just a little before I had hoisted them up, you see, I did hit the treadmill, and it hit right back, scree-e-e-ching, running a loop against my knee until it skinned it of all of its paper thin covering, and even now I can only run for a mile on it before I need release, all of which is irrelevant to the main point which is that these two just won’t seem to hop off, even though I have a hot yoga class at 7:30 in the morning, which is fifteen minutes from now, and maybe if the man had bothered to ask, he would know that power yoga with Dani is essential for developing my “third eye”, but instead he lights another cigarette, probably a Marlboro Red, and so do I, except it’s a Marlboro Green, because we are not the same person, and I take a drag, and so does he, and I close my eyes and remind myself, that it was me who hoisted them up, glued their bodies to my very own, out of free will and maybe something darker, like resentment or love, so I should just embrace the permanent union of our flesh, pick up the phone, and call.

Taylor Zhang Washington University in St. Louis, ‘18

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Dali’s Diary Notas: I don’t do drugs — I am drugs.

I am dark divinity & savage curio.

For me, the eerie. The unending.

For me a glowing russet dreamscape.

Angels bring artificial sleep & sweet & immortality on alternate days; leaves like so many fingertips of trees.

Louis XVI writes rien on Bastille Day. I write tout, I too in careless delirium.

Louis superīs concessit ab ōrīs withdrew from the higher shores sīcut āiunt.

& Sappho says ψαύην δ᾽οὐ δοκίμωμ’ ὀράνω δυσπαχέα I would not think to touch the sky with two arms. μὴ κίνη χέραδος

Do not move stones.

The airplanes drag color across the sky when they manage to hoist their bloated bellies from the turf.

Por desgracia no tengo para darte sino uñas o pestañas o pianos derretidos Unfortunately I’ve nothing to give you but fingernails or eyelashes or melted pianos (Neruda) I refuse to go to the moon for various reasons.

Elissa Mullins Washington University in St. Louis, ‘20

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My Monster

Yena Jeong Washington University in St. Louis, ‘20 Plaster and wood

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Through

Rosa Jang Washington University in St. Louis, ‘19 Acrylic on canvas

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Alternative Miss Ireland 1997 Ardal Butler drained his glass of milk and made eye contact with his father across the table. He was due to help his friend Ferdia get himself into a long red dress and Kate Bush wig, but Ardal had a policy of not sharing little details like that with his long-suffering father.

“Going out with the lads?” Martin senior asked. Ardal appreciated that he asked this as though there were the faintest chance he’d be going out with anyone else. Martin had a big, craggy face that had lined very deeply in the four years since his wife died suddenly. He sat at the head of the table, looking contentedly out at his children and grandchildren.

“In a bit,” Ardal said.

“And you, John?”

“I am, so.” John was fifteen and cultivating his ability to drink like a horse.

Their sister Maureen had made dinner so it was Therese who stood up and began clearing the table. Queenie’s husband was an Aer Lingus pilot, so she often brought the kids round for dinner when he was away. She bounced baby Luke on her knee while coaxing five-year-old Tommy to eat his steamed carrots. Queenie had effectively been the eldest Butler since their brother Martin moved to London. When their mother passed, Queenie brought Tommy back to Street for a little while and she, Maureen and Ardal collapsed inwards to take care of Therese and John. That night, she was staying to help Maureen do her wedding invitations.

“Well, I’m off,” Martin senior said when Therese took his plate. “Thanks for dinner, love,” he said, getting to his feet and kissing Maureen on the top of the head.

“Me too,” said John, jumping up.

“Stop right there,” Maureen said sharply. “You can help with the washing up first.”

Ardal saw his father smile as he shrugged on his coat, as he sometimes did when one of the girls sounded like their mother. John slunk back to the table as Martin disappeared out the door.

“Budge up, do you mind?” Maureen reached across Ardal for the frying pan.

“Yeah, she’s pregnant, you great lump,” Therese put in.

“Here, let me take that,” Ardal stood up and took the pan from Maureen. He set it on the stovetop, since there was no counter space to speak of. They would never have thought of redecorating their mother’s kitchen, so her Sacred Heart portrait still hung on one side of the telephone, and a wood-framed mirror carved by their grandfather hung on the other side. A long-evaporated container of holy water sat beside a handpainted statue of the Virgin Mary on the window sill, along with the yellowed maga-

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zine clippings of George Harrison they had been tickled to find tucked away in her jewelry box.

Standing at the faucet, Therese flicked water at Ardal. “You better wash that pan.”

“Would you mind my fecking shirt?”

“Where are you going in that anyway?” Therese asked. “You look like Morrissey’s even gayer brother.”

“St. Patrick’s Day weekend, I know where he’s going,” Queenie smirked.

“Mass!” Maureen said, and she and Therese cackled.

Ardal looked at Queenie in surprise. “What are you on about?”

“You’re going to that cross-dressing beauty pageant, you are.”

Maureen and Therese giggled and John coughed, looking faintly embarrassed. Baby Luke laughed because the girls did and waved his hands.

“It’s a fund-raiser!” Ardal protested.

“And what’s it called again?” Queenie asked.

Ardal sighed. “Alternative Miss Ireland.” His sisters laughed.

“I used to go to those with Martin, you know,” Queenie said.

“You did?” Ardal said. He looked at her with new interest. “I never knew that.”

Queenie lifted Luke to pat him on the back. “What would I have told you for?” she said, not unkindly. Even before Queenie got married and had babies, there had been a world of difference in the seven years between her and Ardal. It had always been Queenie and Martin together growing up. Ardal and Maureen, stuck in the middle, had been endlessly fascinated by their every move. It was hard to say whether the age gap or the Irish Sea yawned more widely between Ardal and Martin, but they did share one joke. If it came up in conversation that there was not one but two gays in the Butler family, they said the same thing: “Our father is very proud.”

In fairness to Martin senior, he was good about it all things considered.

“Will you be competing, Ardal?” Maureen asked.

“I will not,” Ardal said indignantly as he picked up the last plate. “Ferdia is though.”

Therese kept laughing, but Maureen, who had a soft spot for Ferdia, scolded her. “Sure, he’d do better in a beauty pageant than you would,” she said, and Therese shrugged.

“He really is good-looking, don’t you think? I love a culchie accent,” Maureen went on, and Ardal wished she would stop.

“Mammy, I’m hungry,” said Tommy, just as Ardal cleared what was left on his plate into the bin.

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“John, would you put on the telly for this one?” Queenie said. John took Tommy by the hand into the sitting room and Maureen followed.

“Well I’m off,” Ardal said.

“So am I,” said Therese. She leaned in towards the mirror and rearranged her butterfly hair clips.

John returned immediately, leaving the television blaring behind him. “If they’re going, can’t I?” “All right, have fun, boys,” Queenie said, getting to her feet with a sigh and shifting Luke to her hip. “Put a coat on, Tessie, you look like the whore of Babylon.”

“You don’t want to end up like me, do yis?” called Maureen from the sofa, where she had sprawled with Tommy.

“Good night!” John called, and they heard him bound down both flights of stairs before Ardal and Therese were even out the door.

“You’re not going out alone, are you?” Ardal asked, lighting a cigarette in the stairwell.

“Jesus Ardal, I’m meeting Cathy and Monica,” said Therese. Ardal heard Therese’s friends’ unmistakably shrill laughter from around the corner and the sound of eighteenyear-olds in heels on pavement. Confident that his little sister would be in safe if not capable hands, he made his way out into the night.

Simon Linehan lived in a nicer neighborhood than the Butlers, but he and Ardal had gone to the same secondary school and then on to Dublin City University. What with the gay brother and all, Ardal knew better than Simon how to find the good parties and clubs, but it was tall, strapping Simon who ensured they were let in. Simon and Ardal always went to Alternative Miss Ireland, but this was the first time one of their friends would be one of the ten misses. Ferdia Mac Con Iomaire was a Connemara transplant whom Ardal and Simon adopted one night when a performance art piece went awry down by the Docksides. At twenty-two, Ferdia was two years older than Ardal and Simon. His eighteen-month, decidedly undesired pause in Dublin was at long last coming to a close. In four weeks, Ferdia would be on an Aer Lingus jet to JFK. Ardal waited on the corner for Simon because to ring the bell would only get him invited in for a cup of tea and questions from Mrs. Linehan about where they were going that night. As usual, Simon had given his date Ferdia’s address.

Simon’s eternal quandary was that getting a flat of his own would break his mother’s heart. His older brothers hadn’t moved out until they got married, which left Simon in a

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bit of a bind. A person would think Simon were forty years old rather than twenty, the way he carried on about it. Mrs. Linehan was watching television by the window, and Ardal watched as Simon kissed his mother good-night. She said something and it must have been an admonishment about the cold because Simon duly put on a jumper. He leaned down once more to kiss her cheek, and was finally out the door.

“Sorry about that,” Simon said.

“Never mind me, Ferdia is going to kill us,” said Ardal with a glance at his watch.

“We should take the bus,” he added.

“Fuck,” said Simon, who had just pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He put them away and drummed his fingers against his leg as they crossed the street to the bus station.

“Pull yourself together,” Ardal said.

“I just hope we get to Ferdia’s before Peter does,” Simon said. Peter Lynch was Simon’s new boyfriend, whom Ardal and Ferdia would be meeting for the first time that night. “You know how Ferdia can be.”

They fell silent as a lorry pulled up in front of them. The driver glanced their way, but did not pass comment. With a twinge of guilt, Ardal was glad he was with Simon rather than with Ferdia. Ardal could never predict just what would inspire people to yell from passing cars, but Ferdia did tend to be a common denominator. But what was a liability on O’Connell Street could only be an advantage on the Alternative Miss Ireland stage.

Something about the lorry driver made Ardal and Simon apprehensive, and they shared a sigh of relief when the bus arrived soon afterwards.

The only other people on the bus were a pack of schoolgirls and a trio of old farmers in from the country. Then it was just two blocks and three flights of stairs until Ardal and Simon arrived at Ferdia’s door.

“How ye?” Ferdia opened the door, his eyes already lined like Kate on the cover of her fourth album.

“Grand, how ye?” Simon did a spot-on imitation of Ferdia’s accent and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

The one-room flat reeked of pot despite the best efforts of the lavender on Ferdia’s dresser. It was barely bigger than a closet and all the jokes one might expect had long since been made. There was only enough room to pass single-file between the foot of Ferdia’s bed and the strip of kitchen along the wall, and the rest of the floor space was occupied by a fold-out table heavy-laden with makeup.

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The apartment looked to have been wallpapered in 1930. Except for the peeling rose pattern, the walls were bare except for a few pictures torn from magazines of Edie Sedgwick and the Manhattan skyline. This was where the age gap between Ferdia and Ardal and Simon showed most clearly— Ferdia was born itching to leave Ireland, but the other two saw reasons to stay. Ardal himself had never been particularly interested in emigrating, but Martin and Queenie’s ferocious hunger to do so settled over his family like a fog. Ardal always assumed he would feel it when he was older, that it would happen to him like a growth spurt or acne or a taste for beer. But by the time he came of age, Dublin had started to change. There was money, there were jobs, and leaving the country no longer seemed like a foregone conclusion.

“Make yourself useful, would you?” Ferdia said to Ardal. “I can’t very well channel Kate listening to Alanis Morisette.”

“Because there’s such a difference between the two brooding bloody songstresses,” Simon said as Ardal rifled through Ferdia’s extensive CD collection. Ardal ejected Jagged Little Pill in favor of Lionheart and then turned on the electric kettle.

The scarlet dress was folded neatly, ready to make its debut at the Red Box club.

With four sisters, Ardal had never needed to learn how to sew, and thus CDs and tea became his tasks as Ferdia and Simon slaved for weeks over a borrowed sewing machine.

The dress had been a labor of love, but the real hairpièce de résistance was the lush curly brown wig sprawled over Ferdia’s pillow like a poodle.

“So is your fella coming, or what?” Ferdia asked Simon, peering at himself critically in a hand mirror.

Simon sighed. “He should be here by now.”

Ferdia turned to glance at Simon. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Ten quid says he’s standing outside my building biding his time so he doesn’t look too keen.”

Simon smiled tensely, but then the opening chords of “Wow” began to play and he could only stay so dour. Ferdia was on his feet before the first verse began, and he had Simon and Ardal in stitches before the second.

“Ooh, yeah, you’re amazing!/ We think you’re incredible/ You say we’re fantastic,” Ferdia lip-synched, framing his face with his hands. Ardal laughed so hard he missed the mugs as he poured the boiled water.

Ferdia’s imitations of Kate Bush’s dancing and facial expressions were spot-on, but that didn’t stop Simon and Ardal from playing along too, windmilling their arms along to the chorus and making eyes at each other.

“But he always dives too soon, too fast to save himself,” Ferdia sang out loud this

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time and all three of them did the diving motion and tossed their heads. Then Simon stopped.

“Did you hear something?” he asked, and this time they all heard the knock at the door. Simon lunged to answer it, smoothing his hair as he did so.

The long-awaited Peter Lynch stood in the doorway for a moment and Ardal and Ferdia scrutinized him like parents. Maybe it was because Ardal knew Peter was a medical student at Trinity, but he seemed more sensible than the type Simon usually went for, which could only be a good thing.

“I knew I was at the right place when I heard all that,” Peter joked after a moment, as “Wow” ended with tinkling piano and a last, soft “ooooh.”

“Peter, this is Ardal, and this is Kate Bush,” Simon said. “Ardal, Ferdia, this is Peter.”

Ardal and Ferdia studiously avoided looking at each other, so they wouldn’t laugh at Simon’s sudden deep-voiced manner.

“How ye,” said Peter, extending a hand.

“Sure I don’t hear you slagging his accent,” Ferdia said to Simon as he shook Peter’s hand. “Where are you from?”

“Galway,” said Peter.

“It’s a nice hospital altogether you’ve got down in Galway,” Ferdia said unexpectedly.

“It’s all right, yeah,” said Peter, looking bemused.

“What are you on about?” Ardal asked.

“Sure didn’t we bring my brother there when he went and fell off the roof,” Ferdia said.

“Jesus, I never knew that, was he all right?” Simon said.

“He was grand, didn’t I just say it was a good hospital?” Ferdia said.

“Fair play to him,” Simon said.

“So, Simon and Peter,” Ferdia looked between the two, already smiling at whatever joke he was about to make. “What you’re telling me is that after meeting at Powderbubble...Simon called Peter?”

Simon and Ardal rolled their eyes but Peter laughed genially.

“Other way around, as a matter of fact,” he said.

“I always read that bit of the Gospels as a bit homoerotic,” Ardal said.

“As if you ever read the Gospels in your life,” Simon said.

“All right, quiet down everyone, Mammy needs to do her face,” Ferdia said, sitting back down at the fold-out table.

They all watched as he opened a makeup compact and began dabbing at his

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cheekbones. Preparing for Alternative Miss Ireland had been a bracing distraction from Ferdia’s imminent departure, but now Ardal was overcome by how much he would miss him. If it wouldn’t have been so unbearably gay, he might have told him so.

Instead he crossed his legs and did a scathing impression of one of Simon’s exboyfriends. “Drag simply isn’t politically correct,” he said in a middle class accent.

“How can we expect people to respect us when people like you insist on prancing about in frocks and heels?”

“Oh shut up, you big queer,” said Ferdia, snapping the makeup compact shut.

“I miss Arthur, don’t you Ferdia?” Ardal began to laugh as Simon buried his face in his hands.

“Who’s Arthur?” asked Peter.

“Arthur was Simon’s Protestant boyfriend.”

“He was not—” Simon protested.

“Protestant?” Peter laughed too.

“He was not my boyfriend!”

“Christ, Simon, and you think being gay will upset your mother,” Ferdia said, shaking his head and putting a hand to his heart. “A Protestant, the very thought.”

Peter won points with Ardal for changing the subject because Simon looked uncomfortable.

“So, Ferdia, why Kate Bush?” he asked, examining the wig.

“Because she sings like a dream and dances like a lucid nightmare.”

“Isn’t she English though?” Peter asked.

“Oh Christ not this again,” Ardal said as Ferdia bristled.

“Her mam is from Waterford,” Ferdia answered immediately, without putting down his eyebrow pencil. “That makes her a damn sight more Irish than the World Cup team, all them English fellas with Irish grandmothers.”

At first, Ferdia had been a bit put out that the theme of Alternative Miss Ireland would prevent him from dressing up as the tragic American trainwrecks he loved so dearly. Then inspiration struck, as it so often did, to the dulcet tones of “Wuthering Heights.”

“Her mother was a champion Irish dancer,” Ferdia went on.

“Must run in the family,” Ardal and Simon said at the same time, catching each other’s eye and windmilling their arms again.

“And you can hear the influence traditional Irish music had on her,” said Ferdia.

“Look at her cover of ‘Rocket Man.’”

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“No one here is disputing that,” Ardal said firmly. If he sat through one more spirited defense of Kate Bush’s Irishness, he was going to kill Ferdia and the papers would report it as a queerbashing.

“Sorry love, you couldn’t have known what you were getting into,” Simon said to Peter. “Are you nearly ready, Ferdia?”

Ferdia turned to face them fully for the first time.

It wasn’t exactly rare for Ferdia to dress up for Hallowe’en or to impersonate a dead starlet, but he’d never done it nearly so well. Without the voluminous wig, the effect was even more striking. Ferdia really was very attractive, so much so that Ardal told himself he only noticed because it was an objective fact. Tonight, with these sharpened cheekbones and enormous doe eyes, he looked ethereal. He reminded Ardal of an illustration he remembered from his childhood, of Oisín standing against the curling mists of Tír na nÓg.

“You’re not putting the dress on here, are yis? You’ll get us killed,” said Simon.

“Cowards,” said Ferdia, but he complied, flinging the dress on its hanger over his shoulder and tucking the wig under his arm.

Ardal, Simon, and Peter closed ranks around Ferdia on the way to the Red Box Club, but the short walk passed without incident. The conversations they overheard on the street gave way from rugby to the Eurovision Song Contest and it was clear that everyone was headed to the same place. Ardal would have been too embarrassed to try to put it into words, but one of his favorite things about Alternative Miss Ireland was being somewhere without worrying that everything about himself was a giveaway-death wish.

When they queued up at the door, a very bossy man with a clipboard practically pushed Ferdia down a corridor and directed the rest of them towards the main hall.

Peter went to get drinks and Simon and Ardal sat down at a table with their friends Rosaleen and Jenny.

“That the new fella over by the bar, yeah?” Rosaleen asked, craning her neck to scope out Peter. Simon grinned. His nerves seemed to have disappeared completely, and he jumped up to kiss Peter when he joined them at the table. Peter nearly spilled the three pints of beer he had balanced with a bartender’s ease. Ardal could see on Peter’s face that he had forgotten no one present was likely to object.

“Cheers, Peter, I’ll get the next round,” Ardal said, accepting one of the pints.

“To Kate Bush and her Irish mammy,” Simon raised his glass.

“Sláinte,” everyone toasted.

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Rosaleen slung her arm around Jenny, and Simon, cautiously and deliberately this time, reached his hand towards Peter’s. Ardal wished Ferdia were there to make a joke about how nauseating couples were. A few months previously, when Simon and Arthur the Protestant were making a spectacle of themselves at a nightclub, Ferdia had wrapped his arms around Ardal like he never had before. They imitated the other couple to torment Simon, but when Simon started ignoring them, they didn’t stop.

Ardal had stumbled home that night thinking about dancing with Ferdia, but every fear in the book held him back from pursuing it. What held him back most powerfully, though, was his own sense of overwhelming plainness, and this is what he dwelled on as he sipped his beer wedged between the two couples.

The lights went down and the towering, wasp-waisted Panti Bliss glided to center stage. From her high heels to her big blonde curls, she cut a familiar figure and the crowd burst into applause.

“Happy gay Christmas!” Panti trilled. “Welcome to Alternative Miss Ireland, the beauty pageant that makes all other beauty pageants pick up the phone and call the guards to report a heinous crime.”

Ardal realized that either he kissed Ferdia tonight or he never would. The rainy, blustery second half of March was unlikely to present him with a better venue or opportunity. If he tried before the show, he risked rejection on the basis that Ferdia wouldn’t want to mess up his makeup. But if he waited, his luck would depend on how well Ferdia fared in the pageant. No matter when he tried, he risked a sweeping rejection on the basis that Ferdia didn’t want him.

Looking around, Ardal decided he didn’t want to gamble his only chance on the audience’s taste for Kate Bush minutiae, no matter how well-observed and well-performed it was.

He stood up, ignoring Simon and Rosaleen’s questions and the hisses from the table behind him as he blocked their view. The man with the clipboard was doubled over laughing at Panti’s monologue, so Ardal walked right down the hall.

A restroom had been turned into a dressing room and Ardal heard laughter bouncing off linoleum before he pushed open the door. Aspiring Alternative Miss Irelands were fixing their wigs and lending each other safety pins. A woman stuffed her breasts into a rhinestone-studded bra in full view of the entire bathroom.

“Well hello there, gorgeous,” drawled a man in black lace as Ardal hovered in the doorway. Ferdia put down the Kate Bush wig and turned to look at him.

“Ardal?”

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“Will yis come here for a sec?”

“Ooooo,” the Alternative Misses Ireland chorused like schoolboys.

Alone in the corridor, Ardal looked up at Ferdia.

“Have you got your lipstick? Will it take long to redo it or whatever?” Ardal asked.

“What? Did you come out here to tell me I need to reapply my lipstick?”

“No, it’s not that,” Ardal said. He looked down at his shoes. “Oh Christ, I’m fucking it all up.”

Ferdia looked searchingly at Ardal. Ferdia was perceptive, and Ardal knew he was easy to read.

“I could reapply it, though,” Ferdia said. “You know, if I need to.”

Ardal kissed him and underneath the waxiness of the lipstick, Ferdia’s lips were warm and tasted faintly of salt. Over a year of conversation about how great it was that they were just friends fell away as Ferdia pushed him against the wall.

“Excuse me!” It was the man with clipboard walking briskly towards the dressing room. “Five minutes to curtain!”

Ardal laughed into Ferdia’s shoulder and then pushed him away.

“Get out there so I can tell everyone I made out with Alternative Miss Ireland 1997,” he said. “Good luck.”

The man with clipboard knocked on the bathroom door. “Everyone indecent?” he asked. Ardal threw the man a look and took his time walking back to the theater, partly out of spite and partly because his head and limbs felt distinctly out of synch.

Years ago, Maureen got in trouble for kissing a boyfriend outside the school gates.

Their mother sat through the nuns’ admonition with good humor and grace. “Your daughter’s out roaming the streets, kissing boys with impunity,” she had reported, pretending to be cross when Martin senior came home. The phrase kissing boys with impunity floated through Ardal’s head now and he smiled to himself.

“They say gayness and drinking problems go hand in hand, so let’s put that to good use tonight and visit our handsome bartenders over there in the back,” Panti was saying as Ardal crept back to his seat. “All the proceeds will be going to HIV services at Cáirde and St James’s Hospital, so drink up for a good cause.”

Their table fell in the path of the blazing spotlight as Ardal sat down, and Simon raised his eyebrows and tapped his mouth discreetly. Ardal touched his lips and came away with a smear of lipstick and powder.

Kirsty Warren Hamilton College, ‘18

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Project Serendipity i More-successful-than-thou colleagues and confreres pen bestsellers inspired by fortuitously rainy gardens full of mint and garlic and tiny purple flowers on endless repeat and a lonely lemon Ricola cough-drop laying in the corner in the muck beneath the wet warped wooden bench. And they toss off lines like “The rain is bleeding” “My hair forms knots” and No one could prove the pallor-orange moon but I believed it more than I believed in god.

I polled the writer: You believe in god?

ii I frequently find myself in the homes of people I have never known, homes made of drainage pipes and dawn and gutters spitting generic viridian ooze.

I slip in past tenants sautéing rat-brain-redolent cauliflower because I know that someday I will find my lonely lemon Ricola cough-drop and unearth white foxgloves deep in a closet, glowing gloves inside a cardboard box between muddied orthopedics and empty bottles of absinthe and boxes of sugarcubes because absinthe is abstract without sugarcubes and muddied orthopedics and foxgloves glowing at denim-jeans dusk. iii My dad told me stories, when I was little.

I guess I get it from him.

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iv The foxgloves come to me at night and beg me to write and lord when I was twelve I saw a corpse-flower bloom but these have ashen petals crumbling away in fringes of soot like lace on lips and reek of rusted church bells and crushed vanilla and cigarettes; stems haunt half-moon necks; thorns puncture cartridges and siphon away soft sapphire rivers.

Aren’t you happier now?

v Everyone wants to mean something wants to pretend to mean nothing at all god forbid god forbid we mean anything.

Maybe the world will end.

Maybe when.

Maybe then I will desire to make sense.

Elissa Mullins Washington University in St. Louis, ‘20

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My monster waits for me. A sign.

Series—Lucid Dreaming Caroline Yoo Washington University in St. Louis, ‘18 Digital Photography

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Rebirth

Selina Kehuan Wu Washington University in St. Louis, ‘21 Digital print on Chinese rice-paper scroll

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Serendipity My mother told me I was born in a place called Serendipity.

Once, from the kitchen window I saw a falcon swoop down from the backyard fence and drag a little squirrel away, and I said: Mother, where was I born? Mother didn’t look up from her cooking.

In a place called Serendipity, she said. I knew that, of course, but I liked to hear her say it. The syllables rolled together in a lovely little landscape. I poured milk and cereal into a plastic tub and sat at our knob-kneed oak table. I realized I forgot the sugar.

Mother handed me a spoon and a little bowl of powdered sugar. She flicked the antennae of the television until the program was won over by a frenzy of grainy, static ants. She switched off the gas on the stove-top, too, and peeled off her canvas gloves.

Mother opened the door to the backyard. It made a little sing-song screech as it swung.

I gathered my bowl and my sugar. The night was lukewarm.

We could go, she said. I thought I saw the squirrel, peeking out of an over-trimmed hedge. It’s alive then, I thought. The falcon didn’t catch it. A larger squirrel—its mother, maybe—darted nervously down the trunk of our cedar tree, then back up again. It couldn’t decide whether or not to risk talons for its child.

Go where? I asked, when I heard her words once they’d dozily drifted to me.

To Serendipity, she answered, mouth full of hot chicken pot pie. It was surprising, to hear her say that. I’d asked to go to Serendipity before, and I’d always been met with this and that excuse. Now though, I stalled, slurping at the sweet droplets of sugary milk on the tip of my spoon.

How far is it? I asked. I have school on Monday, you know. Mother looked at me with puzzlement etched deep in her brows.

I know, she said (in a “what-kind-of-question-is-that” lilt). It’s not far.

Mother knew I was not one to shy away from an adventure. I nudged some soggy flakes that had tried to escape from the milk by clinging to the sides of the bowl.

Right, I said. It’s just that, there’s this project due.

A project?

For Social Studies.

Social Studies, she repeated.

I looked at her, and I saw in her relaxed forehead and in her soft eyes a Knowing that belongs to only Mother. I glanced away, sharply, as if her gaze was one I’d mistakenly caught in a quiet place.

Is that a falcon? Mother asked. She pointed to the corner of the fence by the bushes. I saw its curved beak, first, opening and closing in a silent cry.

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I wanted to go to Serendipity. I wanted to know if the motel sign with the crooked “T” (I see it now, on the backside of my eyelids) was a dream or a memory. I wanted to breathe my first air, to know if it tasted any differently. I imagined it to be sweet and full of whispered things.

My mother knew lots of things. She knew that I didn’t have a project due in Social Studies, and she knew how much butter I liked on my toast, and when I was sad without looking at my face. Sometimes she knew when it was going to rain. But mother didn’t know that I wondered, each night and most mornings, about my father.

I once heard her talking to her friend Lucile. A dead-beat, she called him. A deadbeat husband and a dead-beat father. Still working at Al’s Auto Repair, she said. Mother didn’t know I was home, I guess, so when she saw me she hung up real quick and shot me this worried look. For once, Mother couldn’t tell what I was thinking. I smiled at her—a real smile, with teeth and squinted eyes—and Mother smiled back, relieved. We never spoke about my father, not really. Mother was hardly ever sad, but she was sad when I asked about him. Her voice would shake and her fingers would quiver and her lips would tremble. Sometimes things just don’t work out, she’d say. Sometimes the world is too big for us. Sometimes we get hurt. I couldn’t tell if she loved him or not. When I was younger, on those nights when I wondered about him, she’d read to me as I fell into sleep. Goodnight, nobody, she would read through a soft, tragic smile. I soon stopped asking about my father altogether.

I knew, as soon as she said that we could go to Serendipity, that I’d want to see him.

How could I not? I’d painted him in my head, starting with his shoes. They were worn, tired, smudged with grease and dust. His jeans were a size too big and held up with a soft leather belt that his grandfather, or maybe his father, had bought him years ago. For a birthday, maybe. The hair on his arms was blonde and caught, dancing, in the light. The sleeves of his thick shirt were rolled up to just below his elbows, and a soft white t-shirt peeked out from under his collar. As hard as I tried, though, I couldn’t see his face. When I asked Mother for a picture of him she said she didn’t have any, and then she’d scoop me up and hold me close and promise me dessert for dinner.

That was that, then. I couldn’t tell Mother about my dilemma lest she feel she had let me down in some way. After dinner I retreated to the windowsill in my bedroom and read Goodnight Moon, over and over until I couldn’t see for the tears that had gathered in my eyes.

The next day, Mother woke before me. I waded through the minutes following sleep, in no hurry to escape my dreams quite yet. I found her at the kitchen table along with two

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plates of toast, one with butter and one with jam. I sat, limbs heavy.

I think we should go, said Mother.

Go where? I asked, but my words were interrupted by a yawn. Go where? I said again.

I looked at Mother. There it was—the Knowing—in her forehead and in the bow of her lips and in the wrinkles by her eyes. I sat up straight.

To Serendipity, Mother said. Her eyebrows were tensed, pushing together in a barelyveiled worry.

I reminded her about my project, but even then I knew my protest lacked conviction.

I want you to see it, she said. It’s important; it’s a part of me, and it’s the very first part of you.

I closed my eyes and saw the motel sign with the crooked “T.” I wasn’t sure what to say.

Yes, take me there. I can’t. When can we leave? I couldn’t bear it.

Mother reached across the table and placed her hand atop mine. Her fingers were trembling.

I’ve called your father, she said. If you want to see him.... She paused.

I noticed trails of dried tears on her cheeks. She took a breath and began again: If you want to see him—your father—we can. We’ll meet him for lunch.

All the while my heart had been pounding against my ribcage. Mother exhaled and gripped my hand tightly. The gesture was full of resolve and fear and selflessness, all at once.

Listen, she breathed. The car’s all packed and ready to go. We’ll stay the night—just a night—and be back with plenty of time.

Okay, I said. My voice was small.

Okay? Mother was surprised.

Yeah, I’m okay, I answered, because that’s what she was really asking.

The only sign of Mother’s nerves on the way to Serendipity were her knuckles, white and gripped tightly around the steering wheel. Mother popped in a CD and threw her head back to sing.

Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on?

Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?

And did I hear you say, he was ameetin’ you here today, To take you to his mansion in the sky?

I watched her, and though there was no stopping the flutter of nerves in my stomach, I could not deny the swell of joy ebbing through me. Mother told me the trip would be

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just a couple of hours. Of course, I was anxious to get there; in that moment, though, Mother’s voice ringing with a brave joy, I wished for a longer road to Serendipity.

I saw the motel sign first. It was the first landmark of the little town. The sign previewed a squat building with smudged windows. Someone had replaced the “T” of the sign and given the whole of it a new coat of paint; I was almost sad for it. While I’d been away, Serendipity had grown old, too.

Mother was silent now. We passed the motel and a little string of houses with peeling paint. A women sat on the porch of a particularly decrepit house. I watched Mother glance at the woman and turn her attention sharply back to the sooty road. Did Mother know her? I’d been right; the air of Serendipity was full of whispered things—secrets and stories, half-truths long-remembered. But it wasn’t sweet. In fact, when I rolled the window down, the air was thick with dust.

We pulled into an empty parking lot outside a diner. I couldn’t see much through the cloudy windows, save for the blur of red leather booths. This was it, then. My muscles coiled like rope; my fingers trembled. Mother put on a brave face.

We’re here, she sang, voice falsely bright.

I dug my nails into the palms of my hands. This was what I wanted, I reminded myself. Why then, did I feel so afraid?

Mother entered the diner first. She walked with purpose and with her head held high.

Her steps echoed, tinny, on the cheap tiled floor. A man behind the counter stared at my mother like she was a wild animal—and in that moment, her shoulders thrown back in a proud, wild display of resolve, perhaps she was one. I watched him take her in. Something clicked, after a moment, and the man’s eyes went wide with disbelief. He looked at me, then, and it was as if he’d only just noticed I was there at all. Shock was written across his face. He knew me, or knew of me; I was certain of it. It was a small town, I thought.

Everyone knew everyone. Still, the man’s reaction was visceral, palpable. I decided there was a story there.

Mother sat on a cracked red booth. A skinny waitress with dark circles under her eyes crept over to take our orders. I wasn’t hungry, and besides, I could barely hear her for the buzzing in my ears.

Over the next hour I watched Mother sip her coffee—she didn’t even drink coffee, and when I reminded her she smiled—and I tried to guess at the details of my father.

Would he be wearing a watch? I guessed no.

He’s late, said Mother. I wondered how they’d ever gotten along at all; Mother didn’t like lateness. We paid the waitress and left the diner.

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We’ll go to Al’s then, said Mother. He’s running late, that’s all. Stuck at work, probably.

Outside Al’s Auto Repair a grungy sign boasted that the establishment provided the “Finest Service in Serendipity.” Mother’s lip curled at the sight of it. We rolled to a stop in the dusty lot and mother looked at me.

Ready?

Yes, I said, and I was.

A man with broad shoulders and a thick neck walked out of the garage. He wrung an oil-stained rag in his hands. I read the little tag sewn on his shirt.

Look who it is, said Al. Never thought I’d see you around here. He looked at me, for a moment too long, and grinned a wide, toothy grin. And you’re the kid, he said.

Al, said Mother, reluctantly familiar. She let him pull her into a gruff hug. When she stepped back, Mother’s lips flattened into a hard, nervous line. Is he here?

He didn’t tell you? There was a strange sadness in Al’s face. He pulled my Mother close and spoke in a hush.

He’s gone, darlin’. Left this morning with his girl and her little boy.

I waited for Mother to argue, to say, of course that wasn’t true. She’d called him; he’d said he’d meet us. He’d said he’d meet me. Mother’s shoulders dropped. It was true, then.

He was gone.

When will he be back? Mother finally asked, voice raw.

A couple days, maybe, said Al. Could be a week.

Okay, she breathed. Okay. Thanks, Al. It was nice to see you, darlin’, said Al. Don’t be a stranger.

Mother only smiled, a sad, knowing thing.

I felt a sob building in my throat. I wanted to scream, no, no, he’s here, he has to be. But I followed Mother to the car without a word and let the hot tears fall down my cheeks and over my closed lips. I closed my eyes shut, all the way home. I didn’t want to see the Motel sign or the little string of houses, or the people that knew my mother and knew me, too, from a long time ago. I didn’t want to see Serendipity. There was nothing for me here.

That night, Mother made cake for dinner.

We could watch a movie, she said.

Okay.

Okay?

No, I said, because that’s what she was really asking. I sobbed into her arms until sleep came, and I dreamt of a different Serendipity.

Anna Konradi Washington University in St. Louis, ‘20 31

Tarrying in the Park I saw a man in the park today, old and grizzled and grave he looked like the type to reminisce about hurricanes and my life has been dry as of late so I watched him smoke for a while, until he had no breath left to trade. it would have been so beautiful if he’d thrown his cigarette stub glowing onto the grass I could’ve written about how it burned life back into the gray strands and lent clarity to the November haze, how it foreshadowed death in the darkness before dawn’s secondary succession and bold new beginning but I have a poet’s luck. he tossed the stub into a gnarled wire trash can it hit the metal and slid down

so

slowly. tar is supposed to stick to the sides it lingers, grows weathered, and warps. he looked like he’d been here before he looked like he used to stand taller.

Caroline Kelly Barnard College, ‘20

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Echoes

Ramsha Asim Boston University, ‘20 Photography

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New York Poem (Inspired by Terrance Hayes’ “New York Poem”) I am the white girl with the barcode tattooed on her face with cat eyes, darkly lined. i will talk to you fiercely about what i believe in— tall causes with broad backs and wide hands i will sit on a fire escape and smoke your cigarette because it won’t kill me if it’s not my own. and i will talk to you fiercely about the wars in the deserts, and the famines in the streets— but i will not talk to you about the white girl with the barcode tattooed on her face. if you ask, i will say i am hungry but that i can’t decide if i want greasy pizza or a greasy bacon egg and cheese. and you will smile and admire, my cat eyes, darkly lined, say that i am a mystery but that would imply that somewhere, deep down, i had a story. i don’t, silly. i just have these words, odes to dead philosophers, freedom fighters, Technicolor and the Pulitzer, and this face, i think you like. so lets walk through Chinatown, and be bitter, about the new CVS that used to be the little psychic shop

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where that lady told us we were gonna get married. let’s wonder silently, if that’s still true. and then, come 5AM, i will disappear down underground before the sun could dare expose, the barcode on my face and how easy i would be for you to replace. because i like you. and this greasy food. and these long walks. and your silly idea that i am More, but what scares me is, how you want me to stop smoking, so that I have more time to show you what my eyes look like without makeup on. it scares me so much that as i get off the subway, i walk into a bodega, and i buy a pack of my own.

Grace Sofia Bendik Vanderbilt University, ‘19

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Little League Five-hundred-and-fifty-nine, five-hundred-and-sixty — Whenever I wait for something, I count the seconds and imagine that however high I count will be the number of home runs I’ll hit when I’m in the Major Leagues.

Usually I get to around nine-hundred-and-fifty, which is okay with me because it’s more than Babe Ruth’s seven-hundred-and-fourteen and Hank Aaron’s seven-hundredand-fifty-five, even more than what Josh Gibson would’ve hit if he had gotten to play in the Majors instead of just the Negro Leagues. I don’t count Barry Bonds’ seven-hundred-and-sixty-two home runs because he took steroids and that’s cheating.

Sometimes in the morning when it’s time for school I’ll only get to four-hundred, but when Mom has Grunt over in her room I’ll get up to around two-thousand-and-fourhundred before we leave the apartment. But I know I’ll never hit that many home runs.

Of course, his name isn’t really Grunt—it’s Grant—but once Mom’s door closes that’s all he seems to do anyway. They’ve been seeing each other for a little less than a year or so, but he calls her Honey and sometimes they kiss in front of me. He’s always wearing one of those canvas Carhartt jackets and his breath smells like coffee, even when it’s night. I don’t call him Grunt to his face. I don’t think he’d like it very much.

Five-hundred-and-seventy-one, five-hundred-and-seventy-two— I’m sitting on the couch, fiddling with my baseball pants and knee-high socks that I like to pull up so I can look like the retro players. Not many Major Leaguers do it like that anymore, and it looks kind of stupid the way their pants sag at the ankles.

Mom and Grunt are in her room, watching TV or something. They’d better get ready soon, because I really can’t be late for my game.

Mom writes for the Home section of the New York Times and we live alone in a smallish apartment on the third floor of a four-story walkup on One-Hundred-andSixteenth Street and Second, a few blocks from where the awnings and doormen turn into Hispanic bodegas and older black men sitting on stoops. Mom has her bedroom and I sleep on the couch in the living room, which I don’t mind because the sun hits my face from the window and wakes me up early enough so that I have time to play with my Legos before school. I make castles with fortifications, layers of gates and walls to guard the treasure. When they are built, I leave them on the windowsill for a few days before I break them down - I only have so many Legos.

Five-hundred-and-eighty-three, five-hundred-and-eighty-four— I hear Mom calling from the other room, saying James, are you ready, we’ve gotta go. I’ve been ready since five-hundred-and-eighty-four home runs ago, which is just barely short of getting me into the top ten sluggers of all time, right between Frank

36

Robinson and Mark McGwire. I put my bat and my glove in my bag, pull my socks up to my knees, and make sure my cup is in place—Dad used to tell me to protect the family jewels. Mom walks out of her bedroom with Grunt, who looks disgruntled, but I guess that’s the way he always looks regardless. Mom’s wearing her mom jeans, which she kept wearing even though Dad always teased her about them. Her hair is put up in a messy ponytail, and as she gives me a kiss hello she tousles my hair like she usually does, which messes it up, but it’s fine because I like it messy. Plus, when it’s under my baseball cap it doesn’t matter anyway. She takes care to lock the door behind us, jangling her keys and humming to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Grunt rolls his eyes. I glare at him and make a face. We are halfway down the stairs when I remember that I’ve forgotten something—“I need to go back!” I yell. I snatch Mom’s keys and sprint back up the stairs, down the hallway, through the front door, past the framed photograph of Dad that we keep on the table, and open up the box I keep under the couch. My Topps 2002 Mike Piazza baseball card is safely nestled in there, and I grab it, put the box back, lock the door, and run back to Mom and Grunt.

Grunt takes the card out of my hand and peers at the gold lettering. “Huh, you went all the way back for this?” he says. I snatch it back.

Before Dad died, he always said that Piazza was the spirit of New York City, especially after nine-eleven. I don’t tell this to Grunt.

We walk down into the One-Hundred-Tenth Street Subway station to get on the downtown six train and I notice that on the uptown side of the tracks, people are decked out in Yankees gear, wearing jerseys with the last names Jeter, Rivera, Rodriguez, Giambi, and Posada. I scowl. I’ve never liked the Yankees. It either has to do with the fact that all my friends who are Yankees fans always tease me for being a Mets fan, or that the Yankees lost the World Series the night that Dad passed in 2003. I guess it’s probably the second thing.

We get off on Eighty-Sixth Street and head across the avenues towards Central Park. Grunt stops to get a small bag of sugary crystallized peanuts from a Nuts 4 Nuts stand on Lexington. The smell wafts over me, and Grunt offers me some. They are crunchy but still warm, a sweet, roasted flavor that colors the early autumn morning air.

The first time I met Grunt, he took Mom and I to a diner near the River, right off of East End Ave. I got a milkshake with burgers and fries. I guess he wanted to get on my good side.

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“So, James, you like sports?” he had asked.

“I guess just baseball.”

“Ah. Never liked baseball, always found it too slow. Never could sit through it.

Now football—that’s a real man’s game.”

“Football doesn’t have half the technique of baseball.”

“Ah, well.”

He wasn’t a very good talker, more of a grunter I guess, if I’m being totally honest. I spent the rest of the meal making paper worms out of the straw wrappings and watched them unravel, almost lifelike, as I dripped drops of water on the soggy paper.

Mom takes a few minutes examining the window displays on Madison Avenue.

I think they look too perfect and fake for anyone to actually buy anything in them. I ask if anyone actually buys anything in them, and Grunt says that only the really rich people do. I point to a leather bag and Mom guesses it probably costs two-thousand dollars. Two-thousand dollars! I’d rather have a nineteen-sixty-eight Nolan Ryan rookie card than a brown purse. Nolan Ryan’s fastest pitch was one-hundred-andeight-point-one miles per hour, the fastest ever recorded. He had five-thousand-sevenhundred-and-fourteen career strikeouts—the Hank Aaron of pitchers.

I can smell the halal trucks, hot dog vendors, and ice cream stands as we near Fifth Avenue, a mixture of spicy and sweet. We walk in silence past the Metropolitan Museum of Art, past the Temple of Dendur that Dad would bring me to on the weekends after tee-ball games and strawberry shortcake ice cream bars. The old temple was cool and all, but the thing I remember most was the T206 Honus Wagner card they had, housed in a glass case in a hallway of memorabilia. It was the rarest baseball card in the world, Dad had said, and told me that there were less than sixty in existence.

I cross the bike path right inside Central Park before the streetlight says WALK, and Mom and Grunt hurry after me. It’s game time now, and I slide my bat out of the bag, whirling it around in the air. “Be careful sweetie,” Mom says. “You’ll hit someone.” Grunt grunts his agreement, but I pay no attention to them and hurry to field number eight, which is separated from the Great Lawn by the loop and is next to the basketball courts where guys are playing pickup. I can feel the surrounding buzz.

Some people are lounging on the grass under the outer trees while others play frisbee, football, or soccer. Older men are getting way too into their softball games, and they yell LOOK OUT! if you get too close.

I beat Mom and Grunt to the field, lace up my cleats, and join the rest of my team in the outfield for warmups. We shag fly balls and run do-or-die drills, spitting

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copious amounts of David’s sunflower seeds on the carefully manicured grass. We underhand flip buckets of balls to each other, hitting them against the fence with a satisfying rattle every time. Coach Martin calls us over, tells us he’s posted the lineup in the dugout. I’m not starting, which is okay with me I guess because I never start anyway so my expectations were low to begin with. We break from our huddle and because we are the home team, the guys hustle out onto the field and I sit in the dugout, marking the plays on the scorecard like I usually do. I keep my head down. I don’t like seeing Mom crane her neck to see if today is the day I get to run out there with the rest of them.

Coach Martin is standing in the corner of the dugout, watching our pitcher and catcher intently, but I see him glance at me out of the corner of my eye, tentatively, and suddenly he turns and motions me over towards him.

“You know, James, I wanted to start you today, but it’s an important game and we need you doing your dugout duties, making sure the boys are all good to go.”

“Okay, Coach. I understand.”

“I’ll see if we can get you in at some point.”

Okay, I say, and sit back down. I want what’s best for the team. But I know I’m better than Greg, the right fielder, who bats eighth and always either strikes out or hits a dribbler to the pitcher. I also know what Dad would say—that the best players paid their dues before they made it big league. I doubt that Hank Aaron ever sat on the bench, though.

While the game goes on, I rewrap my bat handle and teach myself to put three sunflower seeds in my mouth at the same time and shell them individually. I watch as the other team puts up three runs and we put up two, leaving two men on in both the fifth and sixth innings. Ducks on the pond, as Coach Martin calls them. I watch as Travis, our center fielder, trips while running down a fly ball and lets out a yell of pain as he catches it. The team hustles off the field, but Travis limps heavily, wincing with every step. Martin checks him out, tells him to ice his ankle and crosses his name off the lineup. He looks at me and says, “You’re in the hole.” I jump off the bench, grab my helmet and bat and weighted donut and start taking my practice swings. I don’t use batting gloves because neither does Moisés Alou and he’s in the middle of a twenty-five game hitting streak right now.

Mike is up to bat, and he takes an easy walk. Greg steps up to the plate, and in three straight pitches manages to whiff every single swing. Mike was able to steal on the second pitch. Now it’s me, with one out, man on second, losing three to two in

39

the bottom of the seventh. I approach the batter’s box, digging my right cleat in so I can have better footing. Mom still hasn’t realized I’m in the game yet—she’s talking with Grunt and looking at the newspaper on her lap.

I can’t really blame her for not being very interested. I haven’t played in three games and she must get awfully bored. She always comes to my games, even the one the weekend after Dad died. It was back when we still batted off a tee. I don’t remember much from that game except the one at bat I had I couldn’t seem to even touch the ball, which was lying stationary on the stand. Whiff, whiff, whiff, and I remember her cheering hoarsely from the stands, her eyes saggy and red.

No whiffs today, though.

I glance across the field, where a young boy is playing catch with his dad. I can hear the sharp smack of ball against leather glove from hundreds of feet away.

Make your arms into a ‘T,’ Dad had told me. Point where you want to throw. I had thrown it right at him and it hit his old mitt right in front of his chest. Ow! he had exclaimed.

That one hurt!

I had giggled.

Now the pitcher comes to his set position. I clench my teeth and settle into my stance, rotating my bat in circles above my head. The pitcher winds up, throws, the ball a white blur. I let it go, it looks outside.

Strike one! the umpire calls. I think he’s wrong, but you never argue with the ump, maybe only ask him questions. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mom nudging Grunt, motioning earnestly towards home plate. “Go James!” she yells and claps.

Where’s Dad? I had asked Mom in the afternoon on nine-eleven. She had taken me out of pre-school that morning. He’s helping all of the people that are in trouble, she had replied. Rescue and recovery. He’ll be okay. She looked worried, though. When the door opened that night and it was Dad in the doorway, I remember how she clutched her chest like she thought it might explode. It was the same way Dad clutched his chest three years later when his lungs gave out, when they got scratchy and black from all the dust and dirt on nine-eleven and after so many tests the doctor said it was Cancer.

Stage four, he had said, which I didn’t understand at the time.

Now, I clutch my bat. Pitch two comes in higher than the last one, but inside. I still don’t swing.

Strike two! the ump calls, and my dugout erupts into angry cries from the players and the coach. Mom yells out. I don’t look at them. I step out of the batter’s box and clear my mind. I need to focus.

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In the box under the couch in our apartment is a small envelope with a letter in it that had also once contained my Mike Piazza card in its plastic sleeve. The doctor gave it to me the day Dad died. He said it was on Dad’s bedside table and addressed to me. I have it memorized by heart, I’ve read it so many times.

Jame-o: I wish you could fully remember the first baseball game in New York after 9/11. It was the Mets versus the Atlanta Braves, ten days after the Twin Towers fell and so many lives were lost. The two teams were bitter rivals, but for a short period of time, everyone stood together, waving American flags with their hands holding their caps over their hearts. I saw 30,000 people cry during the national anthem, and when it was done, chants of “USA! USA!” echoed around the stadium. It was late in the game when Piazza came up to bat. The score was 2-1 Braves and he swung for the fences. He swung for the city, for the dead and for the living. It was the home run heard around the world, a call of hope and freedom in the face of despair. It was resilience and celebration, it was light-in-the-dark believing.

It’s your turn to be Mike Piazza now, James. Be that hope for your mother.

All love, Dad The windup, the pitch. The ball is hurled at me, trying to go past me, getting closer and closer. Do I swing? I know that the pitcher is probably trying to trick me, to give me his junk, to make me look stupid, to keep me on the bench. Expect curveball, adjust for fastball, Dad said. But I never prepare for the curveballs. No one ever really does. All I do is adjust to the disappointment after the whiffs, the bitter taste in my mouth, the lump in my throat. I see the pitch, bigger than it’s ever been before, and my hands move, my body twisting, my back heel squishing the bug, the bat exploding through the strike zone.

Clang. Not a crack, not the sound that it makes in the Majors when the whole stadium sits upright, ears perked to the wood-meets-leather smack, the sharp bite that pierces the crowd, not even the end-of-the-barrel clunk or the close-to-the-handle clink of a metal bat, but the sweet-spot clang of aluminum shock. The ball rockets through the air, over and between the heads of the left and center fielders, but I’m not looking. Dad always told me to run, run, run, never stop hustling, never look at your hit. Let the base coaches direct you, he said. So I run, taking the banana cut around first base, hitting my stride. I look up and see Tim, the third base coach, motioning for me to keep going. Mike passes home plate. I round second, panting now. I’m panting like Dad every time he laughed when I visited him in the hospital and told him jokes, his face grimacing with the effort of it, wheezing and sputtering, but smiling

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nonetheless. I’m panting like Mom when she couldn’t catch her breath through her sobs after the doctor told her Dad didn’t have much time left—a month, maybe, and I overheard it through the crack in his office door. I’m panting like when I ran down the hospital hallway away from the waiting room, where I had counted fourteen-thousand-and-four-hundred home runs before the doctor came out with a grim face, and Mom ran after me, crying James, James, James, but I couldn’t hear her or anything else in the world. I’m panting, and my heart is beating, and Martin windmills his arm for me to run home, and I’m really booking it now, and the throw is close but I’m sliding feet first, and the catcher fumbles the ball like Mike Piazza never would have, and my cleats touch the plate before his glove touches my leg.

Safe! calls the umpire.

That’s one.

Theo Kandel Vanderbilt University, ‘19

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Noam Chomsky’s “Language and Knowledge” Savannah Bustillo Washington University in St. Louis, ‘18 Citrasol transfer and pronto plate

In these prints I annotated Chomsky’s essay on the development of language in the darkest red color. Then I went back and annotated my annotations in a lighter red. I continued this process three times. What emerged was a reconfiguration of language as I purposefully did not follow rules of English grammar. Instead a new system of communication emerged which only I can understand. I question in this piece how grammar can be broken and ways of communicating beyond such systems. This piece is a conversation I have, first with Chomsky, and then just with myself.

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Cloud

Matthew Wang Academy of Art University, ‘18

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Ghost Story When we first drank wine together, we did so in the silence of each other.

In brisk winter dusk, bodiless versions of you and I danced outside in pools of rosewater and winter constellation. Inside, we sat together, refusing to let the skin over our skulls touch. We held all of the oxygen in the room. “I’m gonna lose it when Paul dies,” I whispered to the blackbird sitting next to me, trying to shake the snow from her wings. “We are all floating,” she replied.

Bailey Cohen New York University, ‘20

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Psalm to be Read on Mother’s Day, in Two Ways Like a thurible, my mother holds her mother’s favorite flower between the palms of her hands when she prays.

I imagine a meteor shower because I have never seen one before. Bits of constellation, falling into the ocean like rose petals.

The second softest part of my body is where my mother touched me after I told her I had been depressed.

A pasty twilight, beautiful and feathered, the silhouette of a European Starling sat on a tree, the sun setting behind him like he was a church bell.

When we drove to Long Branch to cast my grandmother’s ashes into the ocean, we drove past her favorite things.

The first time I was upset I no longer spoke Spanish fluently was during the church service.

I only remembered líbranos del malo and como en el cielo.

Every Mother’s Day, my brother and sister see how far they can throw roses into the ocean. During this game, my mother weeps.

It was nighttime then, and I spent time in the church parking lot listening to my uncle speak in graveyard whispers. All night, my mother’s favorite flower, withered and breaking, each petal dissolved into the ocean. Some would dry up on the sand like unholy prayer. I always did my best thinking covered in dirt. The softest part of my body was the inside of my throat when I told my mother I’d keep trying. The best hostia are the ones covered in sand. We eat picnics on the beach & there is a certain sweetness to this ocean turned rosewater. When the sun sets, I can see my brother’s wings in his shadow.

Bailey Cohen New York University, ‘20

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Mom Sleeping

Rosa Jang Washington University in St. Louis, ‘19 Etching on paper

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Penjing and Psyche

Claire Huang Washington University in St. Louis, ‘21 White charcoal

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Plants Speak of the Moon It’s like a raindrop suspended in air. Like frost webbed over a seed, like a seed webbed over by a spider and dropped tantalizingly close. It’s an imitation and a poor one. It reflects white-silver from white-gold. It teases and tickles us. Like a peck on the cheek or a one-armed hug, like a limp handshake. Like a dress that you buy and bring home, only to discover the zipper is broken one day after the return-by date. Like writing someone a letter, not realizing you’ve written the wrong address. It’s unsatisfying, it’s pale, it leaves us wanting. What about the stars? we ask, and the plants tremble their leaves. They say, stars are reminders of what we’re missing, what we’ve lost, what we did have and will have again. Stars are palpable proof of its loneliness, its cowardice.

They say, we resent it but we feel sorry for it. They say, pity those who cannot shine by their own light.

Meredith Brus Washington University in St. Louis, ‘20

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In the Living Room Lies a Coffee Table I have been in the practice of giving things names since before I met you. I say, “Look at this table, with its smooth, round edges, I will call it a table, or maybe a woman,” since I never thought something that looked so sturdy and so strong could also be so soft and so perfect. On this woman lies a book of poetry, and my coffee, which doesn’t sound right, but then I look up and see you, with your beautiful, linguistic heart and coffee colored eyes, milk, two sugars, I think some would call it hazel, but I have been giving things names since before I met you, so I will call your eyes tomorrow, after today, after when I want to see them next, after the day after today after today after today. I will call this moment a bench, after the time we sat on a bench, drunk on vodka, when I whispered into your neck, it was just below your ear, I was off by only inches, that I loved this moment, this bench, with your hair in my mouth, my throat, my stomach, which I will call my gut in a poem about your hair in my gut. Some accidents are perfect like this one.

By this I mean meeting you, which I will call a blessing, but not one I am conscious of enough to pray for, and also, the hair in my gut, which I will call discomfort, but the best kind, in the way too much sugar in your coffee eyes would scratch my throat when I drink, when you lay your lips around my collarbone, head angled slightly, but who would be thinking about angles at a time like this? A time called three a.m., which can have no other name besides three a.m., when your fingers interlock between mine, and I cannot tell if you are asleep.

A time at which I was only awake for the sole purpose of falling asleep, which we will call love, but only tomorrow, in the morning, sitting at the coffee table.

Bailey Cohen New York University, ‘20

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This publication was designed by Madeline Partner; set into type digitally at Washington University in St. Louis; and printed and bound at Missourian Publishing Company, St. Louis, Missouri.

The type face is Centaur MT, designed by Bruce Rogers.

Spires accepts submissions from undergraduate students around the world. Works were evaluated individually and anonymously. Spires is published biannually and distributed free of charge to the Washington Univeristy community at the end of each semester. All undergraduate art, poetry, prose, drama, song lyric, and digital media submissions (including video and sound art) are welcome for evaluation.

Special thanks to: Washington University Student Union; Missourian Publishing Company; and the authors, poets, and artists who submitted.

For more creative content including new media, video, and digital artwork, visit our website.

Submit your original work: spiresmagazine@gmail.com View past issues and additional artwork: spires.wustl.edu Stay in the loop: facebook.com/spiresintercollegiatemagazine

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My Body is a Dumpster Fire Amy Chen Washington University in St. Louis, ‘19 Oil on canvas